According to Martha Bayles, a professor of humanities at Boston College, public diplomacy has disappeared. Her new book is “Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad.”

On a  sultry afternoon in the city when the rest of the Kolkatans were busy with their routine tasks, a small crowd cheered throughout the performance by hip- hop artists Next Level at the American Center. The performers from the US entertained the audience along with local hip-hop enthusiasts and dancers. Next level programme is an initiative sponsored by the US Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in association with the University of North Carolina's Department of Music.

South Korea and China will hold a joint public diplomacy forum in Beijing next week to discuss ways to step up bilateral exchange in non-political sectors, a foreign ministry official here said Thursday.

The China Institute will hold its annual gala today, celebrating the 88th year since its founding in 1926 and making it the oldest US-China cultural organization in the United States.  The China Institute in Manhattan was established by American and Chinese educators, including John Dewey, Hu Shih, president of Peking University and China's ambassador to the US, and Kuo Pingwen, founder of the National Southeastern University in China.

The Shangri-La Dialogue styles itself as the premier forum for defence diplomacy in Asia.  Institutions and individuals whose primary function is the organised use of force are turned to the business of dialogue and communication. In a region so beset with tensions and rivalry as Asia, defence diplomacy is an important and welcome addition to the international scene.

A disclosure by British weekly The Sunday Times of millions of documents allegedly revealing massive Qatari vote buying in the Gulf state's successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup could rejigger the Gulf's fragile balance of power, reverse hopes that Qatar would initiate significant social change in the region, and return the worst corruption crisis in global soccer governance to the top of the agenda.

Dubai retained its position as the second most important international retail destination globally for the third consecutive year – according to a report.  The emirate came closely behind London, which also retained its number one position, according to the 2014 edition of the annual How Global is the Business of Retail report released by real estate consultancy firm CBRE.